I am Ben's Uncle Tony, I am here to welcome you to this memorial service to honor Ben Francisco Inez de la Cruz. As we go through this ceremony, there is one thing I want you to do. I want you to think that we are looking at the book of Ben. The story of Ben. Each one of us has a chapter written on it. And even if we think that our part is small, it is important to Ben. No book is compolete if it has missing pages. Today we will try and finish this book. We are writing the final chapters on it, but as in any book we always want to go back and review and look at the chapters, the phrases that reminds us of Ben. Things that make us feel happy. I have memories, alot of memories of him and I will always recall.

Ben is unique. He is such a character that you sense that he is different. There is something about him that even on your first encounter with him, you will feel always at ease, that you can always get along with him. He is very friendly. He is also full of life, he radiates this energy all over the room. His meer presence will change the mood and the atmosphere in that room, not because it changes from a quite room to a noisy room, but to a happy room. He is full of life and always with laughter. He jokes a lot, even if his jokes are not welcome to everybody, but they are innocent jokes. He is full of love, and he is quick in recipricating love. If you have noticed when you hug Ben, he hugs you back, only that he hugs you tighter and closer, and this makes you feel good. He is very loving, and he is full of fun, and in fact I think everything that he does is for fun, to enjoy life.

Ben is the most famous of the de la Cruz's. Every friend of the family will always remember the one that made them laugh, that threw some jokes or just did something different. He is always smiling, always with a grin.

There is this little thing that Ben and I used to do. Sometimes when we caught each others eyes, even at a distance, we will stare at each other. And no body moves unless somebody starts smiling. And if he is close, we will hug. I don't know how this started, but it is one of those things that I used to do with him.

Ben is a very talented fellow, he is very good at everything that he does. His cousins, my sons, look up to him. Allen told me once, "Ben is the one who challenges them in computer games, that we always wanted to beat those Clarks Summit kids". He is also the inspiration for my kids to play the piano. My kids would like to play what he can play. And they have gotten good at it, but Ben is the best. My son Michael told me once, "I have listened to Ben play a passage of Beethoven's sonata, and I have listened to Horowitz recording of the same thing, and Ben sounded better". And that's how good Ben is.

There is so much that we can talk about him, these are some of mine. You have written your own chapters of this book, and some of you will be recalled in here to read your book, your chapter.

Now we are all gathered here, sharing the same grief, searching for answer and trying to understand why, why am I feeling so much pain inside that I feel it is tearing me apart? Why did he do it, if he loves me, why would he cause this much pain in me? Why is it lately it was difficult to talk to him? Why is he avoiding me? It has been very difficult to connect with him? Well, in the past few weeks, Ben has changed, he is not himself. Something took control of his life - drugs. Drugs, the biggest scourge of this society, took Ben away. He was a victim of this scourge. Drugs put him in a different world, a fantasy world, an escape world. He was so deep in this unreal world that it became impossible to reach him. He was too deep in this mess, that even the love of his mother, his father, his brothers and sisters could not reach him. Maybe only the love and power of God can take him away from this ugly world. And that is what he choose. This was his final solution.

I feel that this is wrong, and that is why I am greiving. His mind has been so matted by drugs that he doesn't think straight anymore. But he did it, in all the confusion going on in his mind, he choose this. If he goes early to choose his creator, his suffering would be over, and you know what? Maybe God agreed with him. Otherwise, God would have let him live, we would all be in the hospital visiting him now instead of doing this. If I agree with this premise, then I shouldn't be feeling this pain. And I think that is what happened. God took him because he suffered enough. Bens troubles are gone, he is at peace with himself, and I think I should let him go. He is now with God, and is happy. Goodbye Ben.